Microsoft’s Internet Explorer version 7 is a reality now. The final release is so close we can smell it all over.
Many praised that Redmond people would think better before releasing this Minor-major upgrade, but obviously Microsoft didn’t listen.
And Internet Explorer 7 is so damn obsolete even before its official release, that it will continue to pull the handbrake to the World Wide Web for a long, long time.

I feel quite surprised so, when I hear optimism around the enhancements that version 7 brought to us. Even some well renowned webdevelopers eventually found something positive to say about this Explorer.
I don’t understand why they feel this upcoming release could be positive in any way for the whole web.

In the development of the WWW, another junk version of Internet Explorer, even if way better than the previous, only means another version to hack for.
Up to yesterday we had IE6 and IE5 and IE5.5 as the main pain in the ass, tomorrow we’ll have IE7 too.
Finding good in IE7, is totally vain for two big reasons:

1. Reason 1

   Since previous versions of IE will still be there for a long time (not everybody is using Windows XP and not everybody is gonna switch to Windows Vista), all the enhancements and new capabilities of version 7 are virtually unusable. Plus IE7 will brake on most existing hacks and will need its own.

2. Reason 2

   Even if we pretend that we don’t need to support older versions of IE anymore, we need to remember that version 7 is still lacking too many features compared to its competitors, to allow webdevelopers to take advantage of the many CSS possibilities. IE7 would just be a little bit easier to hack, that’s all.

So, whatever happens, the web will still keep driving with the handbrake pulled up.
I think that unless webdevelopers stop supporting (and by that I mean stop delivering presentation, not blocking contents) every non-compliant browser starting from all old versions of Netscape, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Safari and finishing with Internet Explorers, Microsoft will continue to ship a bad browser.
Let’s clear this last statement.

I understand that the concept of a non-compliant browser is something vague; there’s no 100% Standard Compliant browser and there will probably never be one.
I’m not advocating for suppression of tag soup parsers (even though I’m tempted), nor I am trying to set a predefined level of compliance under which a webdeveloper is allowed not to care about, because would be arbitrary and quite trivial.
I’m just saying that the way things are now, there are some browsers that render pages the same with very negligible differences, and one browser (different in different versions) that simply and maliciously does not.

Now, what is it that defines Firefox, Konqueror, Safari or Opera Standard Compliant browsers?
The Acid2 test could be used to define that, even if Firefox still fails it, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.
I want to give credit to the intention of making a compliant browser and to the acts done to prove that intention.
Microsoft might claim they have the intention (which I don’t believe they have), but lacks the acts to prove it.
I know, I know I should not generalize and simplify the development of a browser this way, and I know that making better software is not just a matter of saying ehy c’mon, let’s do it!, but who, if not Microsoft, has the power to do that with relatively little effort?

Finally Microsoft, as the producer of the most widely distributed Operating Systems, has great responsibility towards net development.
Net development is not just a game for geeks nowadays. Internet is the most important mean of communication and pulling the brake on the net, is an attempt on the sake of freedom of speech and the right of information.
Ok that might seem a little bit exaggerated, in fact it is a provocation, but still gives a true hint of a threat which shall not be underrated.